Labour accuse No 10 of lack of transparency over resignation as government refuses to reveal exact timings of events

Rowena Mason, political correspondent

Tuesday 4 March 2014 20.47 GMT

David Cameron is under pressure to explain whether his senior aide Patrick Rock was tipped off by Downing Street that he was accused of an offence related to child abuse images hours before his arrest by police.

Labour accused Number 10 late Tuesday of a “lack of transparency” about the senior adviser’s resignation and subsequent arrest, which took place nearly three weeks ago but only became public after a leak to a newspaper.

It also emerged that the aide was previously accused of “inappropriate behaviour” by a colleague and this incident was investigated by his line manager, Ed Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff, who is also an old friend of Rock’s.

He insisted Downing Street has given “very full and straightforward answers” about the matter once a newspaper found out about the arrest.

However, the government has refused to give any exact timings around their discovery of the allegations, including when the police were alerted, when Rock was informed, when he resigned, and when Cameron found out.

Downing Street would only say that the police were alerted “immediately” when the matter arose on 12 February and Rock resigned the same day. He was arrested in his west London home in the early hours of 13 February – a “few hours” after Downing Street reported it to police. The responses suggest Rock knew he was accused of a serious potential offence the day before he was arrested.

Cameron’s official spokesman also declined to disclose the level of vetting given to Rock, 62, whether the alleged offence took place in Downing Street, and how the resignation came about.

Officers from the National Crime Agency subsequently examined computers and offices used in Downing Street by Rock, who was the deputy director of No 10’s policy unit.

Tom Watson, a senior Labour MP who is calling for a public inquiry into the abuse allegations, told the Guardian: “There is a duty of care to Mr Rock, who has not been charged with anything as of today, yet I do think it is not unreasonable for Downing Street to explain why he resigned hours before the police appear to have acted.”

Another Labour MP, John Mann, criticised the secrecy about details of the arrest and questioned the decision of Number 10 to keep silent for three weeks. “Yet again we are seeing a lack of transparency from No 10. It is highly inappropriate that a major figure could cease to be responsible for these policy areas without MPs and the public being made aware. We need to be sure there are no policy implications,” he told the Evening Standard.

However, Cameron insisted it would not have been appropriate to “pre-emptively” brief the story before Downing Street was asked questions about it.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said the complaint of “alleged inappropriate behaviour” during Rock’s employment at No 10 was not linked to his arrest. He said this was “resolved” with the agreement of the complainant and Cameron was “aware” of such internal staffing matters.

This “inappropriate behaviour” complaint was investigated by a senior civil servant and Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff and an old Etonian, who worked alongside Rock with Lord Patten during the peer’s time as a European commissioner in Brussels. Cameron and Rock also worked together as special advisers to Michael Howard in his time as home secretary in the mid 1990s.

The arrest of Rock who had been tipped for a Tory peerage, will have come as a severe shock to the prime minister and the Tory establishment.

You mean Jimmy Savile? I think (political, broadcasting management, etc.) insiders knew it, but many others did not. Victims of Savile who complained to police were told to go away. The police people in these cases may, or may not, have known the truth.